


if you were a kiss i know i'd be a hug

by rocketshiptospace



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, M/M, girl!Liam - Freeform, girl!Niall
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-20
Updated: 2012-11-20
Packaged: 2017-11-19 03:32:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,411
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/568614
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rocketshiptospace/pseuds/rocketshiptospace
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Louis has a list with his favorite things about Liam. In the mean time, Harry and Niall do not realize they’re in love with each other. Things happen.</p>
            </blockquote>





	if you were a kiss i know i'd be a hug

“Everything you know about the girl in the dark blue skinny jeans and the purple/pink checkered blouse. Go.” Louis says as he sits down at their usual table, cocking his head in the direction of a girl sitting a few tables away from them.

Niall stops throwing peas at Harry (who had been pointedly ignoring her) and looks at the girl in question. “Liam Payne? Oh god, what on earth did she do to catch your attention? Seriously, I was praying we could go through all four years of high school without you noticing her.” She says with a sigh.

“She tripped over her own shoelaces and I helped her pick up her books. Why? Why is that bad? Why shouldn’t I be noticing her? And will you just tell me everything you know about her already? It’s obvious you know who she is.” Louis leans over the table towards Niall, eager look on his face.

“Dude, we all know who she is. We have at least four classes together with her.” Harry says with a roll of his eyes, earning an elbow in the ribs from Niall.

“Don’t tell him that! We’re not telling him anything about her!” She hisses, making Harry roll his eyes again.

“Oh come on, babycakes. You know Louis. Once he has set his mind on something, he’ll do anything to eventually get it. So once he’s set his mind on fucking Liam, he’s going to fuck Liam.” Harry says, ruffling Niall’s hair. She sends him a glare that would’ve killed him if he hadn’t been so used to it.

“Hey! I didn’t say anything about fucking!” Louis cuts in.

“You were thinking it, though.” Zayn, who had been quiet until then, speaks up.

“I… yeah ok I was. But still. You make it sound… so mean.” Louis grumbles.

“No offence Lou, but that’s because you are. You like a girl, obsess over her for weeks until you finally get into her pants and once you do, you leave her and ignore her for the rest of her life. I’ve seen this happen a million times and I’ve always been fine with it, because I’m not one to interfere in your life, but I’m not going to let it happen to Liam. So get her out of your mind.” Niall spats, standing up from their table.

“I’m going. I have to get some stuff from my locker. See you later guys.” She says and disappears into the crowd.

“What’s gotten her panty’s in a twist?” Louis mutters once Niall is out of view.

“No idea. I’ll go check up on her.” Harry says with a slightly worried look on his face. “Catch you guys later!” He says before also disappearing.

“Give them two more months and those two are dating.” Zayn states.

Louis laughs. “Zayn, mate, you have been saying that since we were twelve. Don’t think it’s going to happen anytime soon.”

Zayn sends him a slight glare. “Just you wait. I’m almost a hundred percent sure this time.”

Louis just smiles. “Sure, Zayn, sure. Hey, you don’t happen to know more about Liam, do you?”

\--

They’re a weird bunch, the four of them. At first it had just been Harry&Niall, like two peas in a pot. Niall had moved into the house next to Harry’s when they were seven. Harry still remembers the first time he met Niall.

It had been a rainy day when the moving truck had turned into the driveway of the house next to them. Harry had been peering out of the window, bored because the rain forced him to stay inside. A car had followed the truck and four people had piled out of the car.

A woman, a man, a boy from around eleven and a girl from around Harry’s age. Harry eyes were immediately drawn to the girl. She was wearing jeans and a t-shirt and had long blond hair that seemed to be everywhere. She was screaming to the woman (surely her mom) and stomping her little feet on the grass, splashing mud and water everywhere.

The woman listened to all the screaming before she cut her daughter off. “You know what honey?” Harry could hear her say. “We’re going to go inside and you’ll follow us when you’re ready, kay?”

The girl hmpfed and the rest of the family went inside, leaving the fuming girl behind in the pouring rain.

Purely acting on his instinct, Harry ran out of the living room, into the hallway, grabbed his coat and an umbrella and rushed out of the house.

He stopped in front of the blond haired girl and waved shyly. “Hi.”

The girl looked at him, studied his face carefully and then suspiciously eyed the umbrella in his hand.

“I thought you might be getting soaked, so I brought you an umbrella.” Harry said, opening the umbrella and holding it above their heads, sheltering them from the rain.

Finally the girl opens her mouth to speak. “Thanks. I’m Niall.” She says in a lilting Irish accent. Harry swears that it was the most beautiful thing he had ever heard.

“I’m Harry.” He says, and Niall smiles.

And that’s how it went on for awhile, Niall knowing exactly what she wants and Harry wanting everything Niall wants.

Then Louis came along and he jumped straight into the little bubble Niall and Harry had created for themselves and demanded to be their friend.

And that’s how Harry and Niall found out at an early age already that it was really damn hard to say no to Louis once he had set his mind on something.

Zayn was another case, though. He had just been sitting at their usual lunch table one day and neither of them wanted to sit at another table nor wanted they to send the boy away so they just joined him and after that he just kind of stuck around. Not that any of them was complaining, after all Zayn was great company to have.

\--

But right now it was just Niall and Harry again, sprawled across Niall’s queen sized bed, Niall flicking through some fashion magazine and Harry doing his best to distract her.

“Why don’t you have posters in your room, though? Or more specifically, why don’t you have posters of me?”

Niall rolls her eyes. “Give me a magazine that actually has a poster of you in it and I’ll gladly hang it on my wall.” She says, not looking up from her magazine.

Harry mumbles some incoherent words and Niall whacks him with the magazine. “Oh shut up, you. I have pictures of you on my whiteboard, don’t I?” She says, pointing towards the giant white board that hangs on the wall at the other side of the room.

The whiteboard is littered with pictures of Harry and Niall, from seven years olds to now. Every once in awhile there’s a picture of Niall with her parents or her brother and some with Louis and Zayn. But mostly pictures of or with Harry. The spots that are not covered with pictures are filled up by Harry’s scribbly handwriting and some obscene drawings.

Harry grumbles. “Well, ok, that’ll have to do it for now. But you’ll hang up a poster of me as soon as there is one, right?”

Niall sighs and pick up her magazine again. “’Course I will, Hazzabear.”

There’s a silence for awhile as Niall continues reading her magazine and Harry pokes her leg with his toes.

“Hey babycakes?” Harry suddenly says.

Niall lazily looks up. “Yes?’

“Will you now finally tell me why you got so upset when Louis mentioned Liam?” Harry asks, flopping down on his belly and leaning his head on his hands.

Niall sighs. “Oh come on, you know Louis. He’ll just make a mess upon her innocence or something like that.”

“Yes I know Louis and I also know he has ‘made a mess’ upon many girls’ ‘innocence’ and you never gave a flying fuck. So what’s different this time?” Harry says, nudging her slightly.

“Promise not to tell anyone. Especially not Louis.” Niall says, holding up her pinky.

Harry takes it without much thought and gives it a little shake. “Promise.”

 

“Well, I talked to Liam the other day, in the dressing room right before PE. Like, me and her kind of get along, I guess?”

Harry ruffles Niall’s hair fondly. “You get along with everybody.”

Niall sends him a playful glare. “Besides the point. Anyway, me and Liam were talking and stuff and the subject landed on you and the lads and then I mentioned Louis’s name and she started to get all blushy and stuff so I bombarded her with question’s and then she admitted she kind of had a crush on Louis but was too scared to talk to him.”

Harry furrows his brows, confused. “But isn’t that, like, good? I mean, Liam likes Louis, Louis likes Liam, they get together, voila, problem solved.”

Niall shakes her head. “No, you don’t get it. Liam’s a girl. If a girl has a crush, she’ll keep it to herself. She’ll only admit that she actually has a crush when she’s pretty much head over heels ‘I want to have your babies’ kind of in love. And you know Louis, Louis’s only in it for the fucking. He’ll break her heart. And Liam’s a nice girl ok. I don’t want Louis to break her heart.”

Harry sits up and wraps his arms around Niall’s fragile frame. It always surprises him how small she actually is. Especially when she’s bouncing all over the place, laughing and joking and just being Niall. But it’s the small moments like this, where Niall gets so worried because she doesn’t want anyone to get hurt and Harry can see it consume her that he just wants to take her in his arms and shelter her from the world, let it just be the two of them again, just like it was in the beginning.

“You know what? I’ll help you make sure Louis doesn’t hurt her, ok? Seriously babycakes, don’t worry too much. Everything will be fine.” Harry says, his thumb tracing small patterns on Niall’s arm.

“Hmpf.” Niall mumbles into the fabric of Harry’s shirt. But she seems satisfied with his words, because she doesn’t say anything about it later.

\--

Zayn hadn’t known more about Liam and both Niall and Harry refused to even mention the girl’s name and Louis was getting frustrated.

He had seen her around, though. Because once he realized that ‘yeah, they did indeed have a lot of classes toghether’, he had a hard time taking his eyes off of her.

He also realized that he started to describe Liam with words he did normally not use when describing girls.

Things like smart, adorable, beautiful. Normally he just would’ve stuck with either nice or fuckable, really.

It was confusing the fuck out of him.

And that was probably the reason he had yet to work up the courage to actually talk to her.

Now it was a week after the first time he had laid eyes on Liam Payne and he was walking into the library, hoping to get some of his math’s homework done.

Then he suddenly spotted her.

Liam Payne, sitting al alone at one of the tables. She was hunched over her books, nose almost touching the paper, her messy brown hair put up in a loose bun so it wouldn’t get in her eyes. She was scribbling down things in complete concentration, tip of her tongue caught between her lips. 

Louis almost tripped over his own feet and quickly hid behind a bookcase. He peaked through the books towards Liam and took a deep breath. This was the perfect opportunity to finally talk to her. She was sitting all alone and Niall or Harry wasn’t anywhere near to stop him.

Louis straighten out his shirt and stepped away from the bookcase, casually walking over to Liam’s table. “Hey, is it ok if I join you?”

Liam looked up, brown eyes widening. She started blushing and her eyes flicked through the rest of the library, pointedly looking at every empty table available in the almost empty room. “Eh, yeah, I, yeah sure.” She muttered, turning back to whatever she had been doing (peeking over her shoulder, Louis saw it was science).

“Thanks.” Louis said, slumping down in the empty seat next to Liam, knees accidently bumping. Liam gulped.

Louis took out his math’s book, looked at the exercises he was supposed to do and gave up. He turned to Liam and poked her arm in order to get her attention. Liam jumped and looked at him with those big brown eyes that made his insides go slightly mushy.

“Hey, you’re smart, right?” Liam hesitantly nodded, like she was not sure if it was ok to be smart or not. “Great! You reckon you could help me with my math? Because if I’m supposed to do it by myself I’ll probably end up throwing my books through the window and then I’ll get in trouble and that would probably not be good.” Louis said, sending Liam a lopsided smile. Liam hesitantly smiled back.

“Yeah, yeah, sure. Let me see.” She said, extending her arms to grab his math book. “Oh, this is easy!” She happily exclaimed when she saw the exercises Louis was supposed to do. She glanced sideways at Louis and caught him glaring at her.

“I… I mean, yeah, eh, it’s indeed a really difficult chapter, course I’ll help you.” She stumbled over her words again and a blush started to form on her cheeks. Louis decided that was probably one of his favorite things about her. Next to her tongue sticking out when she really concentrated or something or the way she tucked her hair behind her ear or how she gripped at her bag strap when she walked through the hallways and yeah, Louis reckoned he probably should stop watching her every move.

“Louis? Are you listening to me?” Liam said, awkwardly waving a hand in front of the boy’s face.

Louis realized he had been staring at her and quickly snapped out of it. “Yeah, I’m sorry, I’ll just.. yeah eh, math?”

Liam smiled, a honest one, and Louis realized that all of his previous favorites about Liam easily faded away by the sight of that smile.

\--

“Louis, will you please stop throwing pencils at my head?” Liam said with an weary voice. It had been a month since the day Louis first talked to Liam and they had joined each other every week during the same hour so Liam could tutor Louis math. Louis had not mentioned any of this ‘tutoring’ to Niall or Harry because he knew they wouldn’t approve of it.

So far it had been going great, but if he was honest Louis wasn’t really feeling the math vibes today. “But I’m boooored.” He says, head falling down on the table.

Liam sighs. “Well, you could pay attention to me explaining math, for example.”

Louis looks up and scrunches his nose. “No offence, Li, I love listening to your voice, but I really can’t focus when you’re explaining math.”

When Louis sees the slightly distressed look on Liam’s face he realizes he had just said ‘I love listening to your voice’ and that probably had come across rather stalkisch.

But just when he opens his mouth to apologize or tell her he didn’t mean it like that or something in that direction, somebody shouts “LOUIS WILLIAM TOMLINSON! YOU BUBBLEHEADED IDIOT!” so he decides apologizing is for a later time and turns around to see who had been shouting at him, only to see a furious Niall stomping his way.

Uh-oh.

“Liam, honey, can I talk to Louis for a second? Thanks.” Niall says as she grabs Louis’s upper arm and drags him away from the table to the other end of the library, out of Liam’s ear reach.

“What are you doing.” It’s not a question. It’s more of a ‘Jesus fucking Christ Louis I told you to stay away from her why are you talking to her I’m really mad right now you better have a good explanation because I might actually kill you if you don’t’

“Eh.. Liam’s helping me with my math?” Louis casually says, smiling weakly at his fuming friend.

Niall huffs. “Oh, is she now? Since when do you care about math? Or more specifically, since when do you care about homework? Seriously Louis, I know you and this is obviously just your way of getting into her pants. And I thought I made it very clear that I didn’t want you in Liam’s pants. So whatever you’re trying to do, stop it.”

 

“Geez, Niall! Has it ever occurred to you that I might actually really like her? That I want her for her and not because I want to get in her pants?” Louis spat, crossing his arms over his chest.

“No Louis, that hadn’t occurred to me, because you don’t do really liking. You do liking a bit, or maybe even liking a fair amount. But never ever in all those years I’ve known you have you really liked someone, so no that had not occurred to me.” Niall says defensively, crossing her arms. Even though her still angry stand, Louis can see in her eyes that the anger is replaced by curiosity.

“Well, you better believe it because I really like her ok? She’s nice and sweet and funny and adorable and fucking beautiful and I just want to hold her and tell her all that ok? Because she deserves to be told every single moment of the day that she’s amazing and I just want to be the person to do that but I can’t because I’m scared Niall.

I’m scared that I’ll turn out exactly like you said, that I’ll end up shagging her and then leave her alone and I don’t want that but that’s my nature and I don’t know if that can change but I want it to change because I don’t want to hurt her ok?” Louis takes a deep shaky breath and looks up to Niall. “Wow, to be honest I don’t even know where that came from.” He says with a weak smile.

“Oh Louis.” Niall simply says and opens her arms to give the older boy a hug.

Niall is a tiny little girl and Louis might not be very tall, he will always be taller and broader then Niall, but still, when Niall hugs him like this, Louis feels like a little kid again, when he had fallen over and his knee hurt and his mom rushed over to him and took him in her arms and told him everything would be alright. Niall somehow has the same effect on him.

After awhile, Niall lets go of him, pats his cheek and tells him; “Go back to your girl, Loubear. I trust you not to hurt her.”

Louis smiles at her and walks back to Liam, who is waiting on him, absentmindedly chewing her pencil (Louis is adding that to his list of favorite things about Liam).

\--

“I saw Louis with Liam today..” Harry carefully speaks up. He and Niall are in Niall’s room again, the same as always. Niall has her head in Harry’s lap, trying to read her history text book while Harry is absentmindedly running his hands through Niall’s long thick hair.

“Yeah, I know. Apparently she tutors him in math.” Niall says, flipping the page.

Harry stops combing his fingers through her hair and raises an eyebrow. “You’re not mad?”

“Nope.” She says. “Well, at first I was. But I talked to him. Thrust me, he’s head over heels for her. I’ve never seen him quite like this. It was adorable.”

“Hm.. Still worry about them. You know Lou, he gets so easily bored of things…”

Niall places her textbooks down. “Yeah but he’s still not bored of us too and we’ve been his friends of years now.”

Harry just hums and continues to run his fingers through Niall’s hair. Niall sighs happily and leans into it a bit.

\--

“Liam! Hey Liam, wait up!” Louis is racing through the school hallways at a world record breaking speed, trying to catch up with the dark haired girl at the other end of the hallway.

Liam turns around with an adorably confused look on her face. Then she spots Louis and smiles.

Louis finally manages to catch up with her and comes to a halt right in front of her, panting slightly.

“Hey Louis. What’s up?” Liam casually asks.

Louis takes a few deep breaths before he’s regained enough of his breath to answer her. “Just wondering… Do you have something planned tonight?”

Liam scrunches up her nose. “No, I don’t think so. Why?”

“Eh, I was wondering… Maybe we could go for dinner? Together?” Louis stutters out.

Liam looks like she’s been hit with a bus. “Like a… Like a date?” She asks, voice slightly higher then normal.

Louis nods. “Yeah, like a date.”

Liam’s face splits into a brightening smile “Sure, of course, I yeah, eh, do you need my number or anything?” She stutters, fishing a rackety old Nokia out of her bag.

Louis smiles fondly at the sight of the old Nokia and then takes out his own phone. “Yeah, that would be better.” They exchange phone numbers and then the bell rings, signaling it’s time to go to class.

“Bye Liam, text you later with the details, kay?” Louis says, already walking away. He sort of just realized his class is at the other side of the building and he sort of feels like he’s going to be late if he doesn’t start running now.

“Bye Lou!” Liam shouts after him as he sprints through the crowded hallways, pushing past a few freshmen that look a bit lost.

\--

Louis text’s Liam later that day with the details about their date and then spends a good hour freaking out because he wants this date to go awesome and everything seems to go horrible.

Well, no, actually everything is going fine but it’s Louis so Louis is freaking out.

He decides to call Zayn. Zayn hangs up on him after only three words. Louis pouts at his phone and tries Harry. Niall picks up.

It doesn’t even surprise Louis.

“Stole his phone again, you little thief?”

He can hear Niall huff. “No. He gave it to me.”

Harry shouts “No I didn’t!” in the background and Louis laughs.

“Anyway, what’s wrong?” Niall asks and apparently hits Harry because Harry grunts painfully in the background.

So Louis explains why he is freaking out and Niall sighs and tells him it’ll be fine and then before he knows it it is time to go and pick up Liam and Harry shouts “Always use protection!” in the background before Louis can hear another grunt. Niall has hit him again, probably.

\--

The date goes great. Perfect even.

Louis pick Liam up and Liam is wearing this beautiful blue dress that makes her look so so pretty and Louis just wants to cry because he’s actually on a date with someone so truly beautiful and nice and funny.

His life is great, really.

The food is great and Liam is great (of course) and Louis is so happy that he just gets to spend time with her and make her laugh and somewhere along the date he realizes that he wants Liam. He wants to hide Liam away from the world and at the same time show her off endlessly and it’s a confusing but awesome feeling and Louis wants to never let go of it.

He drops Liam off at home and they stand at the door for awhile, both not capable of saying goodbye just yet.

Liam has this shy smile on her face and Louis just wants to kiss her so desperately right now.

So he does.

It’s just a simple press of lips against lips but when Louis pulls away Liam is blushing in the cutest way and Louis immediately adds it to his list of favorite things about Liam.

\--

On Monday, Louis sits down at their usual lunch table with a dreamy smile and Zayn pats his back and says; “Congrats on the sex, mate.”

Niall’s head shots up from her lunch and she glares at Louis.

“We didn’t have sex. It was just… It was a really really great date, you know?” Louis says. At that point Liam walks into the cafeteria and Louis waves her over before anyone can say anything.

Liam awkwardly sits down in between Niall and Louis. “Hi.” She mutters.

Louis swings an arm around her and kisses her cheek and Liam goes even redder.

Zayn lazily smiles. “You are adorable. I like you. Welcome to our weird and screwed up family. I’m Zayn by the way.”

Liam nods at him. “I’m Liam.”

For a moment it looks like Zayn’s going to say, “Yeah I know that, Louis hasn’t shut up about you ever since he bumped into you.” But luckily he doesn’t.

“I’m Harry.” Harry says, attracting the attention to him.

“Yeah, I know.” Liam slips out and immediately turns bright red again. “I mean, Niall talks about you sometimes.”

Harry lets out a triumphant ‘HA!’ And turns towards Niall. “So you do talk about me!”

Niall pokes her tongue out at Harry. Harry pokes her side. Niall flings a bit of pasta his way.

Louis rolls his eyes and turns towards Liam. “So how’s your day so far going, babe?”

Liam smiles. “Great, thank you. What about you?”

“I need a girlfriend.” Zayn cuts in with a sigh. “Or I’ll end up third wheeling for the rest of my life.”

Louis laughs. “Good luck finding someone who’s actually willing to date you, mate.”

\--

Zayn does find someone.

Her name is Perrie and she’s nice and wonderful and she has started to join them during the lunch breaks and it’s really nice, it is.

Except Niall doesn’t think it is.

Because it’s made her realize that she’s the only one who doesn’t have a special someone and it hurts (ok Liam and Louis are still not officially boyfriend and girlfriend but it’s so obvious that it doesn’t really count anyway).

And she has been spending even more and more time with Harry and she’s starting to realize that, well… it’s still Harry, but it’s different. She starts to look at him differently.

She starts to notice the little crinkle at his eyes when he laughs or the way his eyes lit up when he talks about something he likes or that little twitch in his pinky he gets when he’s nervous.

It’s not like Niall never paid attention to Harry before, that’s not it. It’s just that she’s now interested in another way and it’s confusing and she’s not sure what she should do.

“I can’t believe I’m actually doing this.” Niall says as she falls down on Louis’s couch.

“Doing what exactly?” Louis asks. And then, “Tea?”

“Yes please. And asking you for advice.”

Niall hears something fall in the kitchen and suddenly Louis is right in front of her, grabbing her shoulders and looking deeply into her sparkling blue eyes. “What’s going on.”

It’s not a question, it’s a demand. Niall can see the worry swirl in Louis’s eyes and she realizes Louis is actually terrified something bad has happened, because the only scenarios the boy can think of that involve Niall asking him advice are bad, really bad scenarios.

“It’s about Harry.”

Louis’s eyes narrow. “What did he do? Did he hurt you?”

Niall lifts up her hands in defense. “No, no, no, he didn’t hurt me! It’s just… I think I’m in love with him…”

Louis stares at her for a few seconds and then lets out a relieved sigh. “Thank god, I thought it was something really bad! Geez, Niall, you had me scared there for a second!”

“But this is bad!” Niall cries out and Louis laughs.

“You’re kidding me, right? How is this a bad thing? I mean, we all already knew for years you and Harry were in love. The only people not realizing it were you and Harry self. It was kind of hilarious, really.”

“What.” Niall says, because suddenly she’s not sure what’s going on anymore.

Louis lets out an impatient sigh. “You love Harry. Harry loves you. Is that so hard to understand?”

“What.” Niall says again. And then, “But Harry doesn’t love me?”

Louis laughs, actually fucking laughs, head thrown back and shaking uncontrollably. “You’re kidding, right?” He asks when he’s calmed down a bit.

“No?”

Louis huffs. “Harry’s been in love with you ever since he met you, you dolt. Zayn’s been claiming you will be dating in two weeks since you were twelve. Seriously, it’s a miracle you haven’t realized it until now.”

“Oh.” Niall says, because she’s not sure what else to say. “What now?”

Louis shrugs. “Talk to him. Kiss. Make love. Get married. Who cares. But please do something because neither me or Zayn can take anymore of this secretly pining over each other.”

\--

“Harry… Can we.. Talk?” Niall asks. They’re in Niall’s room once again. This time, Harry’s sprawled across Niall’s carpet, why Niall’s sitting on the bed, plucking at a pillow.

“Weren’t we already doing that?”

Niall throws a heart shaped pillow his way, which he easily catches. “I mean serious talk, bubblehead.”

“Alright,” Harry says, sitting up and tucking the pillow under his arms. “Talk.”

“I.. eh…” Suddenly Niall is at a loss for words. Which is weird, because she’s never at a loss for words around Harry. She always knows what to say and it’s always ok and Harry never gets mad over anything she says.

And that little thought suddenly makes her realize that it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter what she says right now, whether Harry feels the same or not. What matters is that Harry wouldn’t care, that he would still be there for her, that he would never ever leave her.

So Niall takes a deep breath.

“I’m sort of really in love with you.”

There’s a silence. A long one and Niall starts to freak out but then Harry finally speaks.

“Please tell me you’re not joking.” Niall looks at him and his eyes look so hopeful and scared and Niall forgets how to speak so she just shakes her head and Harry smiles and gets up from the carpet to walk over to the bed and sits down next to her, softly cupping her cheek.

“I’m sort of really in love with you too.” He says, before pressing his lips against her and oh wow.

Niall wished she had realized earlier that she was sort of really in love with Harry.

\--

“Louis?” Liam’s voice speaks up. They’re sitting in Liam’s room, attempting to get some school work done. Up until now it’s not going great. Louis made one assignment and then started to distract Liam by sneaking his arms around her petite waist and pressing soft kisses against her shoulder.

Louis stops kissing her and leans his chin on her shoulder. “Yes?”

“What… what are we?” Liam softly asks, looking down at her hands in her lap.

“Humans?” Louis asks, slightly confused by the question.

Liam smiles weakly and turns out of his grasp to slap his arm. “No, you dolt. I mean… our relationship. Are we… I don’t know… boyfriend and girlfriend?”

Louis smiles fondly and cups Liam’s cheeks. “I would really love for you to be my girlfriend, dear miss Payne.”

Liam’s face brightens in a way Louis has not yet seen before and he immediately adds it to his list of favorite things about her. “I would really love to be your girlfriend.” She whispers.

Louis closes the gap between them and softly presses his lips against her. Liam opens her mouth slightly and Louis lets their tongues dance together in a sweet and loving way.

His mind absentmindedly adds the taste of Liam’s mouth (minty and yet sweet) to his list of favorite things.

\--

(The next day, Niall and Harry walk into the cafeteria hand in hand.

Louis and Liam applaud loudly and Zayn shouts, “I TOLD YOU SO! I FUCKING TOLD YOU SO!”

Perrie just looks really confused.)


End file.
